


The Silver and the Glass

by Kroki_Refur



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-04
Updated: 2007-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kroki_Refur/pseuds/Kroki_Refur
Summary: Dean's deal isn't the only thing worrying Sam right now.
Kudos: 2





	The Silver and the Glass

It’s a long drive to Wyoming, and Sam’s back keeps sending sharp pains through him, which he supposes is at least a nice break from the general dull aching and the weird itch. He reaches behind himself a few times to scratch it, and there’s no healing wound, just smooth flesh, tender and raw, but whole like it never had a piece of metal driven into it. He’s tired and headachey, his muzzy thoughts made even more confused by the music Dean insists on playing at stadium-gig volume, but even so, he knows that something’s not right, something’s happened, and he can’t quite figure it out.  
  
They eat at a diner in the middle of nowhere, nothing but scrubby trees and low grass whichever direction he looks in, and he feels trapped by the emptiness. The place is run-down and disgusting, tables sticky and scattered with tiny particles of someone else’s left-over meal. Sam wrinkles his nose, and Dean grins and starts making salt patterns on the table. Dean’s been grinning at him a lot, and there’s something weird about that, too, but Sam can’t figure it out, and he stares at Dean’s fingers swirling and erasing, swirling and erasing, until his eyes hurt and he has to look away.  
  
When he gets back in the car, he finds his hands and the underside of his forearms are peppered with tiny red marks, but he doesn’t figure out what’s weird about _that_ until much, much later.  
  
\----  
  
Sam’s allergic to stuff now.  
  
It’s weird, he thinks, but that’s stupid, of course it’s _weird_ , he was _dead_ for Christ’s sake, and let’s face it, coming back from the dead is about as weird as it gets. All the same, the weirdest thing about it is how _not weird_ it is. Sam doesn’t know a whole lot about resurrection, but if it was gonna have side effects, he always assumed it would be something less mundane than allergies. Showier, like glowing eyes or being able to walk through walls or something. All the same, he buries Bobby’s charm at the bottom of his duffle after finding that the metal it’s made of gives him a rash, and if it’s hard to breathe at night, his chest tight and aching like his ribcage is way too small, well, that’s because he’s allergic to the motel bleach and has nothing ( _everything_ ) to do with the fact that Dean sold his soul to save Sam’s life. Having allergies pretty much sucks, but Dean’s going to Hell, and he’s pretty sure that sucks more.   
  
\----  
  
“What was it like?” asks Sam one day, when he’s three sheets to the wind and still hasn’t found a way to save Dean.  
  
“What?” asks Dean. He’s laying salt along the doorsill, and Sam looks at him and suddenly can’t breathe, and maybe he’s not allergic to bleach after all, maybe he’s allergic to the fact that Dean sold his _fucking_ soul.  
  
“Me being dead,” he says, and he didn’t mean to say it that bluntly, but Christ, _Christ_.  
  
Dean looks up with that frown that makes six-foot-nine truckers back away; but Sam’s never flinched from it, and he’s not about to start now. “Tell me,” he says.  
  
Dean’s lip curls. “Shut up and go to sleep,” he says, and shuts off the light.  
  
Sam doesn’t sleep, though. He lies awake listening to his own wheezing breath drowning out the sound of his brother sleeping, and hopes he never finds out what it was like.  
  
\----  
  
Gordon’s head hits the floor with a dull thud, and all Sam can think is _there’s something wrong with me_. He stares down at his hands, and they’re ripped open ( _because he just tore off a man’s head with a piece of barbed wire_ ), they’re bleeding everywhere and _oh Jesus Christ_.  
  
Dean struggles to his feet across the room, and Sam looks up, looks to see if there’s fear there now, disgust, _I’m not human, there’s something wrong with me_ , but Dean just looks dazed and kinda tired, and when he looks at Gordon’s corpse and raises his eyebrow, Sam knows he didn’t see. He’s relieved, of course he is, because the last thing Dean needs is to know that his brother ( _he sold his soul for me_ ) is turning into something _else_ , something that can slice through bone and tendon and cartilage with nothing but brute strength, but at the same time, he doesn’t want this secret, doesn’t want to _know_ this, and if he has to know, he wishes that Dean could know with him.  
  
He can’t sleep ( _he never sleeps any more_ ), and he can’t figure it out. _It was a moment of panic_ , he thinks, _you needed to save Dean, like those guys who stop trucks to save babies_. He’s not sure any more, though. He always used to think he’d _know_ if ( _when_ ) the time came, would feel the changes inside him, but he just. Can’t. _Tell_.  
  
 _I know what it’s like_ , that’s what Gordon said. _I know what it’s like, walking around with something evil inside your skin_. The thing is, Sam doesn’t know if there’s something evil inside his skin, Sam doesn’t know what it’s _like_ , but he’s terrified, he’s terrified it might be like _this_.  
  
Sam doesn’t sleep at all that night, because maybe Dean didn’t _see_ , but he knows that somehow Gordon’s head parted company with his body, and he knows that Sam must have done it. In the morning, he gets coffee and waits for Dean to wake up.  
  
“Wha-?” says Dean, and Sam opens his mouth, and closes it again.  
  
“Coffee,” he says.  
  
They don’t talk about it.  
  
\----  
  
“There’s something wrong with me,” says Sam. They’re somewhere in Texas, and truckstop coffee tastes as bad as ever.  
  
“Want me to make a list?” asks Dean. “Pass the salt.”  
  
“I’m serious,” says Sam. _I’m not human_.  
  
“So am I,” Dean replies. “These fries are freakin _bland_.”  
  
Sam stares at Dean, and Dean stares back. _He sold his soul_ , thinks Sam, _and all he got for it was me_.  
  
“Get your own salt,” he mutters, and stalks out to the car.  
  
\----  
  
Dean’s got six months to live, and apparently he’s planning to spend at least part of that time chalking Hebrew on the floor in a dingy basement.  
  
“Seriously,” he says, finishing a letter with a careful flick of his wrist, and sometimes Sam think Dean puts more love into drawing protective circles than he does into anything apart from the Impala ( _but Dean sold his soul and Sam is wrong_ ), “they _always_ fall for it. Christ knows how those morons think they can take over the world.” He clambers to his feet and dusts off the knees of his jeans, moves a rug over the circle, and then looks up at Sam and grins like he’s five years old. “Now all we gotta do is wait,” he says, and Sam can’t help thinking that if he waits any longer he’s going to wake up and find himself alone in the world.  
  
It’s the fifteenth time they’ve pulled the trick since Wyoming ( _since Dean sold his soul_ ), but this time, something’s different, because this time, after the exorcism and after they’ve watched the poor kid bleed out on the floor ( _because it seems like they’re always too late to save them these days_ ), Sam heads for the door and then stops.  
  
Dean makes it halfway up the stairs before realising Sam’s not following. “Dude,” he says. “What are you waiting for?”  
  
Sam’s not waiting ( _Sam can’t help thinking that if he waits any longer he’s going to wake up and find himself alone in the world_ ), Sam is panicking. “I--” he says, and tries to step forward again, but it’s like there’s something there, not like a wall, like a force sucking him back. “I don’t--” he says, fear rising in his gut, and he can feel his hands getting cold and he doesn’t know what’s going on ( _except he knows, he_ knows).  
  
Dean comes all the way back into the room and frowns at him. Sam looks helplessly back, and he _sees_ it, sees the moment that Dean looks down and sees the rug under Sam’s feet, the edge of a perfectly-calligraphed Hebrew word peeking out from one corner, sees the dawning horror as Dean looks back up, and feels the strength go out of his knees.  
  
“There’s something wrong with me,” he whispers, and this time, Dean doesn’t argue.  
  
\----  
  
“Don’t be an idiot,” says Dean, which Sam thinks is pretty unfair, all things considered.  
  
“Dean,” he says, trying to breathe through the nausea, “what else could it mean?”  
  
“Look,” says Dean, thrusting the book in his face like he hasn’t already read it seventeen times. “‘The circle can trap spirits, ghouls, demons, and other supernatural entities’,” he recites, and Sam sees that he’s not even reading from the book. “So cut it out with this demon crap, OK? It could be anything.”  
  
“You mean _I_ could be anything,” says Sam, and the words feel like they’re ripping shreds out of his throat on the way up.  
  
“I always said you could be anything you wanted to be,” Dean says, and Sam can’t help but stare.  
  
“Dude. When did you _ever_ say that?” he asks, and Dean sort-of grins like Sam’s passed a test or something.  
  
“Fine,” he says. “I said you could be an asshole when you wanted to be. Which I still stand by, by the way.”  
  
Sam stumbles to his feet, shuffles backwards and almost falls into the wall of the motel room, pressing his back into the plaster like maybe he can just push himself into it, get rid of the mess that he’s made of his life ( _that he’s made of everyone’s lives_ ) and become something else, a wall, a door, anything but whatever _this_ is ( _not human not human_ ). “It isn’t funny,” he says, or at least, he thinks he says it, but it’s hard to hear past the roaring in his ears.  
  
“Hey,” says Dean, and moves around the bed, but Sam scoots sideways, crab-wise, staying away because _who knows what I’m capable of?_ Dean pauses, stares, and then his eyebrows draw down and he squares his shoulders, striding forward, and Sam keeps moving along the wall but eventually he hits a corner and there’s nowhere else to go.  
  
“Hey,” says Dean again, and he’s pulling Sam’s arms away from his face, Sam didn’t even realise he’d lifted them, Sam’s not even totally sure where he is. “It’s OK, Jesus, it’s OK. Nothing’s different. Nothing’s changed, OK?”  
  
“What?” says Sam, and then, “How can you say that?”  
  
Dean grabs Sam’s chin and pulls until they’re eye to eye. Sam tries to turn his head away ( _Dean sold his soul oh God Dean’s going to hell and I don’t even know what he brought back_ ), but Dean’s grip is firm, almost painful.  
  
“Hey,” he says, “hey. We already knew there was something freaky about you, OK? OK? This isn’t different. It’s not different.”  
  
Sam blinks ( _and other supernatural entities_ ), but Dean doesn’t, and eventually, Sam closes his eyes and says _yeah. Yeah_.  
  
Later, when Dean’s in the shower, Sam shoves his hand in a bowl of rock salt. The blisters don’t heal for two weeks.  
  
And yeah, that’s different.  
  
\----  
  
Sam doesn’t handle holy water any more. He still uses rock salt cartridges, but he’s careful not to get any on his skin. Dean stopped salting the doors and windows without saying a word, and Sam’s grateful for the easier breathing, but there are other things to keep him awake now. Dean does exorcisms on his own, because the cadences of the words ring in Sam’s ears until his vision blurs, and they haven’t been to Bobby’s for three and a half months.  
  
When Sam goes near spirits, their faces stretch in fear until they split down the middle and dissipate into nothing. Demons grin when they see him and move more confidently, striding right into whichever protective circle Dean’s decided on today. Sam sees shadows flickering at the corners of his eyes, and sometimes he knows when people are going to die.  
  
Hunting is weird, but then hunting always was. Something’s wrong with Sam ( _Sam’s not human_ ), and the knowledge buzzes constantly at the back of his brain, but Sam hardly knows it’s there, because Dean is going to hell.  
  
\----  
  
The year runs out in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Sam hears the baying of the dogs an hour before Dean does. There’s salt everywhere in the room, goofer dust on every surface, charms hanging in every window, and Sam can barely draw breath, welts and burns ridging the skin of his forearms and the palms of his hands, but Dean just looks sadly round at all his work and says _there’s nothing you can do_.  
  
Sam meets the dogs at the door, but before he can even try to stop them, something hits him hard in the chest, and he finds himself flying backwards across the room, over and through the piles of salt, his skin burning where it infiltrates his clothes. Something cracks sharply against the back of his head, and everything goes black.  
  
When he comes to, the door is swinging on one hinge, and there’s a wide empty trail leading from where Dean was standing to the gaping doorway. Sam’s head is aching like his brain is trying to push its way out of his skull, his skin is a mass of sores, and every breath feels like trying to swallow glass.  
  
There’s something wrong with Sam, but Dean is gone. Dean is _gone_.  
  
\----  
  
Three months to the day since Dean Winchester went to hell, Sam holds out his hand, and an unsmiling old woman puts a package on his palm.  
  
“Won’t do you no good,” she says. “Humans can’t go down there, even if they wanted to. Ain’t no-one but damned souls and demons make it through that doorway, even if they do have a key.”  
  
Sam nods and turns away, looks at the co-ordinates written on the package, and smiles. Humans can’t go through the doorway, he knows that.   
  
Sam’s not human, and he’s going to fetch his brother.


End file.
